


Reflecting Strange Perfections

by thisnightsrevels



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 11:21:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11645523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisnightsrevels/pseuds/thisnightsrevels
Summary: "Grantaire let's Enjolras look at his tattoos (which are all on his chest/waist/upper arms/parts usually hidden by a shirt). Enjolras wants to know the meaning behind all of them."





	Reflecting Strange Perfections

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adorablecrab](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adorablecrab/gifts).



> It kind of got away from me after a while, but I hope you enjoy this!

 

It was one of those days where the heavens open and you just want to huddle in bed forever.

 

Unfortunately for Grantaire he had to eat, had to pay rent, and to do so he had to work. Normally he didn’t mind working at the library, but on days like these he just wanted to curl up on the couch and binge telly. Instead he had to drag himself halfway across town only to be told that he had to take the day off because there was a burst pipe on the ground floor and the library was closed for the day. 

By the time he’d trudged back to his flat, his hair was three times its normal weight from where it had absorbed the deluge and his clothing only served as an extra layer of cold. As Grantaire fished around in his sodden messenger bag for his keys, he fantasized about being wrapped up in a fluffy duvet on the couch , Enjolras curled up beside him and the fire blazing in the hearth. Sadly only two of those three things were a possibility as the shitty electric fire that came with the flat rarely, if ever, worked, and when it did it was lukewarm at best.

Finally winning the battle with the door, Grantaire spilled (almost literally) into the relative warmth of the lobby. And just in time too, because as soon as the door closed, he could hear the downpour outside somehow become even heavier. Shuddering, Grantaire started up the winding staircase, silently thanking whatever stroke of luck had landed him on the second floor. The building was only two stories high, so he didn’t have to worry about long flights of stairs nor other tenants traipsing up and down outside his door. 

He paused before he entered, listening to the muted sounds of Enjolras pottering around the tiny space. Judging from the muffled tone of his voice, he was talking to Patria, their scruffy cat, again - despite his insistence that he “has never and will never do something like- Grantaire I’m serious! Stop laughing! I do not speak to the cat! Taire!”. Smiling softly at the memory, Grantaire unlocked the door and let himself in.

“Honey!” he called. “I’m ho-ome!”

Enjolras emerged from  their tiny kitchen, drying his hands on a teatowel. He was laughing, but as soon as he saw Grantaire dripping on the wooden floor of the equally miniscule hallway his face abruptly dropped.

“Look at the state of you! Did you swim to Red Square?” he tutted disapprovingly and shook the teatowel at Grantaire like a cross mammy. “Get in and get those wet clothes off before you ruin the floors! Wait, what are you- Taire, no!”

Before Enjolras could duck out of the way, Grantaire grinned maniacally and shook his hair out like a dog, dousing his boyfriend in an unpleasant spray of rainwater. Recovering quickly, Enjolras furled up the towel and flicked at Grantaire who yelped and ran into their shared bedroom.

He found Patria curled up under the covers when he flopped down on the bed for a moment to pull off his shoes. Upon being spotted the feline squirmed into an even tighter ball and made it very clear she was ignoring Grantaire. He went over to the chest of drawers and began rooting around for a dry T-Shirt. At the edge of his vision he saw Enjolras step into the doorway. Neither said anything, neither wanting to break the comfortable silence. The rain against the window beat a soothing rhythm, lulling both men into a sense of comfort and security.

It was Enjolras who broke the quiet first.

When Grantaire pulled off his sodden top Enjolras shifted from his position in the entrance and went to sit on the bed. Grantaire watched him, he was clearly trying to figure out how to say something.

“Your tattooes.” he said at last, then looked down, as though embarrassed.

“What about them?” Grantaire asked.

Enjolras looked flustered, a state not many people got to see him in. To be perfectly candid, the only way Enjolras could cope with being unprepared in public, even surrounded by his friends from the ABC was to mentally psych himself up beforehand. Once he had prepared for conversation he was amazing. He could talk for hours to people, convince even the most diehard conservatives to join his cause, whatever that cause may be. It wouldn’t be until after he’d left that the spell would break and they’d sit around scratching their heads, wondering the hell just happened. It was awe-inspiring to watch. It was probably because of this uncanny knack of being able to enter any conversation unruffled that made the times when he did get tongue-tied all the more endearing.

“Do they,” he started. “I mean, what are their meanings? What is the meaning? I don’t know how to ask.”

At that Grantaire laughed. He stopped when he saw Enjolras’ face fall.

“Sorry for laughing, mo ghrá, I just never thought you of all people would ask about them.”

Enjolras gave him an affronted look. “And why wouldn’t I? You hold an interest in everything about me, why would you not expect me to reciprocate?”

“Did you just use reciprocate in a casual conversation.”

“Taire!”

Grantaire held up his hands in mock defeat.

“Honestly, Taire.” huffed the blond. “It’s not like I’ve not seen your bloody tattoos before! I am literally looking at them right now!”

Grantaire quirked an eyebrow. “You’re getting awfully worked up about this, love.” He plopped down on the bed and wrapped Enjolras in a (damp) hug. “Okay, which do you want to know first?”

Enjolras gazed at the multitude of embellishments decorating his boyfriends skin.

“What are these ones here? The ones that look like tally marks?”

Grantaire twisted to look down at his left side, where there were three seemingly identical tattoos. 

“They’re Ogham, an old form of Celtic writing. Each one has a different meaning.”

Enjolras cocked his head like a curious animal. 

“Which mean what?”

“Well,” mused Grantaire. “This one here with the diagonal lines at the top is ‘athair’, meaning father. I got that one when my Da passed away. That one starting with three lines to the left means ‘neart’”

Enjolras let out a laugh. “That’s not a real word, Taire.”

Grantaire poked him in the side. “Tis too! Means ‘Strength’. I got that when I quit drinking. Bahorel went with me for it. Held my hand and everything.”

Now the other man looked a mixture of worried and proud. “I never knew you had a drinking problem? When was that?”

“Twas a couple years ago now, before we really knew each other. I wasn’t anything more than Baz and Joly’s Irish Drinking Buddy and I doubt you even knew I existed.”

Enjolras shifted uncomfortably in the silence.

“Right so!” Grantaire continued, gesturing to his inner forearm. “This last one here stands for ‘clann’.”

“Let me guess,” mused Enjolras. “Meaning clan?”

“Basically, yeah?” answered Grantaire thoughtfully. “I mean, the translation used is family, but the literal one is clan.”

“Was there any particular event that inspired that one?” 

“When my younger brother got married the three of us all went and got it done together. Something to remind us of who we are, and where we came from. I think that it’s the one that means the most to me, to be honest. Especially now I’m over here, Breogán is after moving to Holland, poor little Fionn is the only one left back home. Granted he has his wife, and their little girl, but I never really get to see them.”

Enjolras sat back a bit from where he was examining a deep purple rose covering Grantaires shoulder. “You’re an uncle?”

The other man's whole face changed, from warm contentment to something else, something both fiercely protective and heart wrenchingly loving.

“Yeah, her name is Róisín, she’s six years old, she’s my goddaughter and she is the most important thing in the world.”

“I’m wounded.” said Enjolras with a mock gasp. “And here I thought I was the most important thing in the world.”

Grantaire's eyes crinkled as he shoved at Enjolras playfully. 

“Nah boy. You’re like, fourth.”

“Fourth!?” Enjolras pretended to faint. “That’s it, I’m leaving you for Jehan. If you goddaughter is number one, what are the other two?”

“That’s easy. Rósín, the cat, Francis Brennan, then you” Grantaire supplied, ticking them off on his fingers.

“Who the actual fuck is Francis Brennan.”

Grantaire hit him with a pillow.

“You watch your fucking mouth, Francis Brennan is a national fucking treasure and without him the tourism industry would be in a right sorry state of affairs.”

When realisation of who Brennan was failed to dawn on Enjolras’ face Grantaire shook his head and sighed. 

“ What is the world coming to that you don’t know who Francis Brennan is. It’s a tragedy. Every secondary level Business student in Ireland knows and loves Francis Brennan. Francis Brennan is the backbone of our proud nation. Were he ever to run for president we’d boot out Micky D in an instant. Francis Brennan is everyones favourite TV personality, fuck the Kardashians. I don’t even know who the Kardashians actually are, nor would I care to. Francis Brennan-”

“If you say Francis Brennan one more time I swear to GOD I will do something drastic.”

Grantaire sobered up (slightly). “Yes, moving on. What do you want me to tell you about next?”

Enjolras tapped the rose again. “What’s this one for? It looks familiar, but I can’t place it.”

“That one,” said Grantaire. “That one you recognise because it’s the cover art for Thin Lizzys best known album, Black Rose.”

“That's an odd name for an album, isn't it?”

Grantaire gave him a Look. “Your favourite album is literally “I like it when you sleep for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it”, I don't think you can call ‘Black Rose’ weird. Besides it's a reference to one of the most important movements in Irish literature. Black Rose translates to Róisín Dubh, an important figure in Irish literature, and the album that Fionns Róisín is named after.”

Enjolras sat back a bit. “Explain?”

“In Irish poems and stories and the like, Ireland was always written as a woman, as Róisín. Often she was a young maiden in need of rescuing from the foreign invaders or something. Another popular, well,” Grantaire cut himself off. “Not popular as such but common, was the idea of an old woman whose four sons had gone off to fight in a war, or whose lands had all been stolen from her, and how she was left alone and exhausted, stripped of everything she owned, everything she loved. There are some beautiful poems relating to it, remind me to show you later. The movement didn’t die down as such, but it was brought to greater attention through music in the seventies when bands such as Thin Lizzy started writing music about the Troubles that called the events in Ireland to the attentions of the international public. A lot of it was very much on the nose, like for example-” Grantaire twisted back to show him the detailed drawing of a ripped and torn Irish flag over a bullet wound covering his heart. “For example, this one is a line from the song ‘Out in the Fields’, by Gary Moore and Phil Lynott, ‘No flag has ever stopped the bullet, from a gun.’ Remind me later I need to show it to you.”

Enjolras looked mildly impressed at that. “It’s actually pretty cool that you know all that. You’ve never really shown yourself to be all that interested in… politics. Or history.”

Grantaire quirked an eyebrow. “What gave you that impression?”

“You’ve never really participated in the political side of things?” Enjolras at least had the decency to look sheepish. “You probably talk about it with Joly and Bahorel, but, um,” he trailed off into a flustered silence.

Grantaire watched him with a bemused expression. “It's not that I'm uninterested in politics, it's just that the political struggles of my own country are a fair bit more important to me than foreign affairs. And sure, in all fairness I do tend to sit down the back out of earshot, and the acoustics in the Musain leave something to be desired.”

Outside the world blanked out for a moment as lightning struck. Enjolras tensed and screwed up his eyes and Grantaire stroked the back of Enjolras’ hand with his thumb as he counted off the seconds.

“Four… five… six-” 

Thunder rolled over the city, temporarily muffling the noise of the downpour.Enjolras shuddered a it passed over, then let go of Grantaire. Ever since he was tiny he had had a massive fear of lightning. It was never the noise of thunder that scared him, but rather the hundreds and thousands of volts of electricity that could easily kill someone that put him on edge. Courfeyrac had teased him about it at first, until Enjolras was forced to play his hand and remind everyone about what had happened that time with the goat and Courfeyracs favourite scarf.

“You know,” mused Grantaire, in an effort to distract Enjolras. “I could totally fall asleep right now.”

Enjolras groaned and curled up next to him. “Same, honestly, who needs food. The cat is fed, the dishes are done, there is nothing stopping us just passing out for a few hours.”

“I could get my laptop and we could watch a film?” suggested Grantaire.

Enjolras mumbled a sleepy affirmative and flopped around until he had shed his trousers and was burrowed in under the covers. 

With much moaning and groaning and popping of joints, Grantaire heaved himself up off the bed and shuffled towards the door, grabbing his favourite sleep-shirt on the way. His laptop was in the sitting room, meaning he had to walk a whopping two feet across the squat hallway to grab it. Having retrieved the PC, he slouched back to the bedroom. Enjolras was only a mop of blond curls peeking out over the top of the duvet cover. All around the room was covered in an eclectic mix of things, from Enjolras’ stack of Important Books that ranged from the  original hardback of A.A.Milnes Whinnie the Pooh to the copy of Wuthering Heights he'd ‘liberated’ from his school library eight years ago and still had yet to be finished, there on the windowsill were his own boxing gloves, propped up against the cactus Jehan had given to them as a housewarming gift when they moved in. There were pictures too, some very clearly marking events such as their respective graduations or them in the sitting room the first day they moved in, but some were less clear, such as the one of Enjolras smiling down at the odd lump in his pocket that marked the day they went to the shelter and a tiny little runt of a kitten had taken up residence in the pouch of Enjolras’ red hoodie and refused to come out, or the one of Grantaire, passed out asleep in the car after running his first marathon for the Solas Centre. Their friends are in most others, in pictures scattered through the rest of the flat, one of Marius and Cosettes wedding (Courfeyrac cried like a baby when Marius asked him to be best man) and several from various rallies, including the memorable occasion wherein a straightfaced Combeferre had to explain to a (completely smashed) slightly tipsy Feuilly that ‘No, you can not bring an unsheathed sword  to the fucking rally what the fuck Feu,’.

As he looked around at all these memories, and these reminders that he was surrounded by people whom he loved, and who loved him in return, Grantaire felt his heart swell until he felt he would surely burst from all the emotion bursting inside him.  _ Look, Dad,  _ he wanted to shout,  _ look what your lad has achieved! I'm happy! I'm in love! And I am going to marry this man, so help me God. _

“ ‘Taire! Have you got it yet?”

Enjolras’ voice pushed  into his bubble of light, but instead of popping it and dragging him back to reality, it only made the world glow a little brighter.

“Yeah,” Grantaire responded softly. “Yeah I got it, scooch up.”

With that he settled himself in next to Enjolras, pulling the covers up over himself.

“ ‘Taire?”

“Mhm, yeah?”

“ ‘Taire, you're crying, what's wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, mo ghrá, I'm just happy is all.”

_ I'm happy, Dad. _


End file.
